Page 48

Hovering by the end of the aisle, I glance between her and the door. I watch the windows, though there’s nothing to see. The blinds are drawn, but I still feel exposed. Like someone is close by, watching and waiting for the right time to attack us.

Tara kneels on the floor and starts opening one of the low drawers packed with manila folders and documents. The soft sounds of her rummaging through drawers put me on edge, and I survey the area once more.

‘I know they did something to me,’ she mutters, rifling through pages, flipping past entire chapters without looking. ‘It’s in here. It has to be. There’s magic here.’

It’s not here, but I don’t say that. I warily watch her, growing more concerned. She kneels beside a stack of books and tears open another spine, the cover brittle enough to crack. She winces but keeps going, causing some pages to scatter. Her breathing is getting faster. Too fast. Her heartbeat is thundering loudly like a drum in my ears.

I step forward cautiously, as if approaching a wounded animal that still has enough strength to bite.

‘Tara.’

She doesn’t look at me. She’s somewhere else entirely, her hands shaking as she flips chaotically through the pages.

‘They’ve been in my head. They’ve changed things. I know it. I can feel it. I can’t remember things I should. They’ve taken them from me. Why am I dreaming about fires? It has to mean something,’ she mutters, shaking her head.

My jaw tightens. I want to tell her to breathe. I want to tell her this isn’t the way, that panic won’t unearth the truth, but I know better than to use reason when someone’s drowning. It’s not logic she needs. It’s space to process this and let everything out. It just pains me to watch her spiral like this. It makes me feel helpless.

She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes like she’s trying to force the memories back into place by sheer will.

‘It’s in here,’ she says again, her voice sharp, almost manic. ‘It has to be. I’m not making this up. I’m not crazy.’

‘I know,’ I say gently. ‘Neither of us is crazy, Cupcake. This is all them.’

I’m not sure she can even hear me. When she finally looks up at me, there’s something wild in her eyes. It’s as if the floor’s been ripped out from under her.

‘I don’t know what’s real anymore,’ she whispers.

My heart cleaves into two as I stare at the broken eyes of a beautiful girl tossed into a war she never asked to be involved in. I don’t see the girl who called us monsters. I don’t see the war, the blood, the lines drawn long before she was born. I just see her – tired, cracked open, human – staring into a world she was never meant to understand, trying to make sense of a lifetime of lies, and questioning everything around her.

‘I know,’ I say quietly. ‘But you’re not alone in this anymore.’

She doesn’t say anything. She remains on the floor, surrounded by scattered books. Her shoulders are stiff, frozen with tension. Her heartbeat is still erratic, paired with shallow, uneven breathing. She buries her face in her hands and folds forward, her knees pulled up, her whole body shaking. It’s not loud or dramatic – just quiet, exhausted sobs, like she’s been holding this in for far too long and now there’s nothing left to hold it back. She rocks slightly back and forth, like she’s trying to soothe herself, or keep from falling apart completely.

I freeze. This is not something I know how to deal with. I’ve seen grief and panic before, hell, I’ve felt them and lived through them myself, but this feels like something deeper. A kind of breaking that happens when everything you’ve believed turns out to be a lie, and the people who said they loved you were only ever holding strings. She feels completely untethered. I take a careful step forward.

My instinct is to give her space. Let her ride out the storm on her own. That’s what I would want – silence, solitude, no one watching me unravel – but she’s not like me. She’s not built for silence. She’s been alone for too long already. So I kneel down, still giving her a bit of distance, but just close enough that she can feel someone near her. I want her to know that she is not alone and I’m with her for as long as she’ll allow.

She doesn’t look up. I hesitate for a long moment, then reach out, resting a hand on her back. She leans into my touch.

‘I don’t know who I am,’ she chokes out. ‘I don’t know what’s real. I don’t know what they did to me.’

I apply further pressure, rubbing slow, soft circles over her.

‘I know, I wish I could say it gets easier. That the answers will come, but I don’t know much either right now. At least we can figure it out together. If that’s what you still want.’

She nods. ‘Together sounds good. I’m sorry about this. It just … hurts. Feeling betrayed like this, like I don’t know who I am or what is real. It’s really horrible. Seeing the boys murdered right in front of me, abandoning my life … it’s all just too much.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘None of this is your fault,’ she sniffles, wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve. ‘You’re in the thick of it just as much as me.’

‘It doesn’t make it any less difficult for you.’

Her lower lip quivers and I stay there with her, continuing to rub circles on her back. Her breathing gradually slows. After a drawn out moment, she exhales a long breath, wiping her face and pushing to her feet. I help her clear the mess she made, and when I think she might be ready to go, she turns and begins to grab more books. Eyeing her, I backtrack down the aisle, giving her space.

Tara spends a long time sorting through different documents, muttering to herself from time to time. After what feels like an hour, I’m pacing back and forth, jaw muscles popping as I feel myself growing more paranoid by the moment. Something just doesn’t feel right.

‘There are a few reports about fires,’ she eventually says, and I jump at the sound of her voice in the silence. ‘A warehouse, a diner, a school basement. Nothing residential. Nothing recent, or anywhere close to Red Thorne, or Glenmara, the place you think I might be from. Nothing is standing out.’